NOT their Grandma

My mom was asked on many occasions if she was my brother Maurice's Grandma. Because I was twelve years old when he was an infant, many people thought I was his mother and she was his grandmother. I used to get a kick out the fact that people thought I was his mother. My mom naturally wasn't fond of being mistaken as his Grandma. She turned 39 years old when Maurice was one month old. I was 40 when I gave birth to Oliver. When my mom was my current age she had more gray hair than I do, but even so evidently I look old enough to be my children's grandmother. My mom only had that happen regarding ONE of her children. I have had multiple people in the last week assume I was even Nadia's grandma. I guess I must look older than my age. If I had given birth to my first baby at the age of 21 (instead of 36), and my daughter also had a baby at the age of 21, that would still mean my grandchild would be four years old (not ten!). I guess as time passes this will probably happen more and more. The good news is that Paul and I will soon be at the age where we can start

reaping the benefits of "senior" discounts. Earlier this month I noticed that Colonial Williamsburg has a discount for those fifty and older, and Paul will be turning 50 in 15 months.

I went to bed at 7:15pm on Thursday night. That sounds like a geriatric thing to do. I may not be a night owl, but even that is early for me. I have generally been going to bed between 9-9:30pm because my body is currently programmed to wake up at 5:30. Sometimes I am able to go back to sleep and don't get up until closer to 7:00. Friday morning I got up around 6:15 which meant I had slept for 11 hours! I was exhausted. Even though Wednesday was an at home day for me, it was still a very jam packed day between homeschooling, cooking, grocery shopping, and doing work for the university (at home). Paul took a sick day that day, but he was up in the bedroom most of the day so his presence didn't lighten my workload at all. I skipped choir rehearsal so that I could go grocery shopping and write evaluations of my student teachers. Aside from the grocery

store, the only other place I drove that day was taking the kids to and from AWANA. Tuesdays and Thursdays are my most exhausting days because I often drive over 100 miles each of those days plus am gone from home for at least 11 hours straight. And when I get home those two days I usually eat dinner and then do more schoolwork until I go to bed. I have pretty much eliminated the idea of working FT next year from the list of options. At this point I am trying to decide between working PT (25%, 50%, or 75%) or staying-at-home. Right now I'm working 125% of FT, which is also what I did this past spring semester.

Friday morning I visited a student teacher while the kids were in art/gym class. Paul had to drop them off because I needed to leave the house at 7:40, and their classes don't start until 9:15. When I picked the boys up from gym class, we went into the playland while Nadia was in art class. I read a few chapters of Generation Z Goes to College until Nadia's art class was done. I am in a faculty book club, and we're discussing

the first few chapters of this book next Tuesday. According to the book Nadia and Ian are part of Generation Z. I'm not sure what is the name of the generation that Oliver is a part of. My sisters and I are from Generation X, and my brother is from Generation Y (more commonly called "Millennials"). Because I have a LOT of grading to do this weekend as I will begin conferencing with my student teachers on Tuesday, I decided to buy two large pizzas yesterday which means I didn't need to cook dinner yesterday or today. Normally we try to only eat out (or buy takeout pizza) once a week, and we had gone to Bonanza on Monday night for Nadia's spiritual birthday, but I decided to make an exception since I was feeling overwhelmed by my to do list. I am thankful I didn't stay up to watch the Steelers on Sunday night because they lost (again!). Their game isn't going to be aired in our area tomorrow so that means more hours for me to do schoolwork after church tomorrow.
This "Grandma" took the kids to the annual Heritage

Days held less than ten minutes from our house. I had to let out the seam from the costume I bought for Nadia to wear 3 years ago in Williamsburg. She has definitely grown several inches taller in those three years! I'm trying to get as much work done as possible this weekend in part because next Friday we have a field trip and then are driving to Maryland to spend one more weekend with my sister and her family before they return to Turkey the following week. We also are planning to spend a day at Mount Vernon while we're down there.

No matter how busy I am, one thing I always make time for is reading to the kids. Last night I read Ian and Nadia a book about Koko (the gorilla who used sign language). They really were enthralled and wanted to learn MORE about her. I started reading the kids chapter books in December 2012, and this week we finished books #400 and 401. We're also more than half-way through book #402, which is Indian Captive by Lois Lenski. I read a mystery to Oliver this week (Nate the Great), and Ian and Nadia are also reading mysteries in preparation for a books and bowling homeschool event next Thursday. They used to select specific books for the book groups, but now they are picking a different genre each month. Our homeschool group has been doing this once a month for many years, but this coming Thursday will be the first time we've given it a whirl. The February gathering is always also a Valentine's party. Paul will be taking the kids since I teach on Thursdays. This Tuesday he'll actually be taking them to the university where I teach for a Young Person's Concert the orchestra is presenting (primarily for public school children). So far October is getting off to a better start in terms of field trips not being cancelled left and right like they were in September!

Oliver has been showing improvement with his reading recently. For months he would sound out a word by saying the sound that each letter would make but then would just guess and say a word that had totally different letters than the ones he just sounded out. He asked to read today and asked to read a story later in his reading book. We haven't even done some of the lessons that precede this story (which is why he had no idea how to read the words "he" or "no" yet because we haven't introduced any long vowels yet), but I was very pleased with the progress he's made. Hopefully his fluency will take off in the near future! Progress is always a big encouragement.